Organic Zero-Till - Anyone in the UK

damaged · Feb 10, 2016

@newholland . We have organic straw (and feed wheat oats barley) to sell but not sure why you would find these hard to source. I may have missed the point.
@New Puritan
No plough organic should work on clay but no till in wetter UK , I'm not sure. Think very shallow pass with rotorvator to chop weeds would be reasonably safe for soil and it's life and bonds. Reliance on dry weather crimping and frost kill not UK ideal . mechanical hoeing good enough if you can afford the gps guided kit. Fine for high value veg.
Do not be too keen to ditch the plough. Worldwide, organic system has best AMF andsoil life, iit's the diversity of rotation, not the tillage system.

farming4profit · Feb 11, 2016

Tractor tom7480 said:
I'd be interested to find out more about the chemical product you tried & how it worked....any info to share. . .? Thanks.

Got a meeting with the UK distributor tomorrow as it happens. Where in the UK are you?

Dan Powell · Feb 11, 2016

damaged said:
@newholland . We have organic straw (and feed wheat oats barley) to sell but not sure why you would find these hard to source. I may have missed the point.
@New Puritan
No plough organic should work on clay but no till in wetter UK , I'm not sure. Think very shallow pass with rotorvator to chop weeds would be reasonably safe for soil and it's life and bonds. Reliance on dry weather crimping and frost kill not UK ideal . mechanical hoeing good enough if you can afford the gps guided kit. Fine for high value veg.
Do not be too keen to ditch the plough. Worldwide, organic system has best AMF andsoil life, iit's the diversity of rotation, not the tillage system.

Interesting claim - would you say a plough-based organic system can achieve the organic matter levels that no-till can? I find it hard to believe when you compare the options for couch grass control between the two systems. Must be massively damaging for both soil life and OM levels to summer fallow with repeated cultivations.

York · Feb 11, 2016

From all the soil samples I have tested, conv. & a fair bit organic, from 200mm to 1400mm rainfall, from Egypt to Scotland, I can honestly say that:
- OM building: not seen in organic & conv. which do tillage. Tillage: be it min till to plow
- NT: even then very rarely. OK, this is the "purist" NT.
- Muck, compost, sludge: haven't seen a OM increase on a lot of places.
York-Th.

Tractor tom7480 · Feb 11, 2016

farming4profit said:
Got a meeting with the UK distributor tomorrow as it happens. Where in the UK are you?

I'm on the Emerald Isle. Keen to hear what your meeting digs up .

damaged · Feb 11, 2016

@Dan Powell . I'm with you on this one. No till or really low till to help soils in any system. But what I'm trying to say is that the organic way of usually mixed farming with long diverse rotation and llivestock brings about good soil health so it 'compensates' for the need to plough. I'd be the first in line for an organic no plough system here, if it will work.

damaged · Feb 11, 2016

BSH and I both felt that the best way to soil helth was to move along the dd route which currently works well in UK with the aid of round-up hence leaving the organic system. Even if stubble burning was re introduced I don't think i could make the whole organic rotation work. Couch a good example but in fairness the OP was about organic no til rather than conventional no till vs organic (any till) .

SilliamWhale · Feb 12, 2016

damaged said:
@Dan Powell . I'm with you on this one. No till or really low till to help soils in any system. But what I'm trying to say is that the organic way of usually mixed farming with long diverse rotation and llivestock brings about good soil health so it 'compensates' for the need to plough. I'd be the first in line for an organic no plough system here, if it will work.

You can still have a mixed farm and diverse rotation with livestock and no till though. The organic bit is by the by. Admittedly you are "buying" some extra yield on the conventional side of things but that's an economic decision.

Progress could be measured by a reduction of chemistry inputs rather than an elimination and who knows collectively with lots of research and development we may be organic by default rather than design in 20-30 years? ( can't see it though but less spending on inputs appeals)

damaged · Feb 12, 2016

Conservation ag. may be my middle ground. Currently with a foot in both camps I see it as a definitive solution here.
With the large amount of chemicals being removed from our (EU) use, we are being slowly forced down this route. Not good at all to be forced.The choice should always be the consumers, and we can provide for a market.

SilliamWhale · Feb 12, 2016

damaged said:
Conservation ag. may be my middle ground. Currently with a foot in both camps I see it as a definitive solution here.
With the large amount of chemicals being removed from our (EU) use, we are being slowly forced down this route. Not good at all to be forced.The choice should always be the consumers, and we can provide for a market.

Conservation ag is conventional farming.

martian · Feb 13, 2016

SilliamWhale said:
Conservation ag is conventional farming.

Umm...contentious comment time...

Conservation Agriculture is based on three key principles:
1 Minimal soil disturbance
2 Permanent soil cover (either crop debris or living plants)
3 Rotation of crops (with more than two crops in the rotation).

This way of farming is definitely becoming mainstream for a variety of reasons (eg economic, environmental and subsidy led), so perhaps you are right that it is conventional. The reverse is, alas, not true, ie 'conventional farming is Conservation Agriculture' as plough-based two crop farming is definitely off the menu for CA.

The problem with CA is perhaps that it doesn't go far enough. The hard-core no-tillers round the world talk derisively of sustainability and conservation as being utterly inadequate to deal with the crisis the world is facing. In other words, why try to sustain something which is seriously flawed or why conserve something which is basically anaemic? What we need to do is regenerate the soil, not preserve it in its lifeless state.

But you've got to start somewhere and the 3 key principles listed above are a pretty good foundation to build a farming system on.

dontknowanything · Feb 15, 2016

I'd agree with Will's statement entirely. If you go into a shop, the food is either Organic, or it isn't, there really are no other categories that are even remotely mainstream. So if it's not Organic, it's Conventional.

Maybe CA stands for Conventional Agriculture?

The_Swede · Feb 15, 2016

Sure I saw mention on @Andy Howard 's blog of reduced input / CA type produce having a 'brand' and good consumer following in Switzerland?

Andy Howard · Feb 15, 2016

Jason said:
Sure I saw mention on @Andy Howard 's blog of reduced input / CA type produce having a 'brand' and good consumer following in Switzerland?

Partly encouraged by government policy through Extenso paying money for certain practices, then you get another 10 premium under IP Suisse which is a choice of the consumer whether to buy or not. So double backed by government and public.

Feldspar · Feb 15, 2016

I think in the US / Canada they find they need to get 8000 kg/ha biomass in their cover crops (often rye based) to be able to adequately suppress the weeds in the following cash crop (soybean in a lot of cases).

Interesting paper here on the idea of light rotary hoeing in the presence of residue coverage to kill weeds prior to organic no-till drilling:

http://journals.cambridge.org/actio...e=online&aid=8484922&fileId=S1742170511000500

chaswhit · Feb 16, 2016

York said:
From all the soil samples I have tested, conv. & a fair bit organic, from 200mm to 1400mm rainfall, from Egypt to Scotland, I can honestly say that:
- OM building: not seen in organic & conv. which do tillage. Tillage: be it min till to plow
- NT: even then very rarely. OK, this is the "purist" NT.
- Muck, compost, sludge: haven't seen a OM increase on a lot of places.
York-Th.

After 12+ years of min til + chopped straw + near total CTF our OM levels on clay soil have gone from below 3 to ave 6.7. Now in CA and hope for more.

Will Blackburn · Feb 16, 2016

dontknowanything said:
I'd agree with Will's statement entirely. If you go into a shop, the food is either Organic, or it isn't, there really are no other categories that are even remotely mainstream. So if it's not Organic, it's Conventional.

Maybe CA stands for Conventional Agriculture?

Free range eggs, very mainstream.

dontknowanything · Feb 16, 2016

Will Blackburn said:
Free range eggs, very mainstream.

Don't know about where you shop, but my only option is free range. Free range = coventional

Clive · Feb 16, 2016

SilliamWhale said:
Conservation ag is conventional farming.

not if your any good at marketing it's not !

if you tell the right story its a premium to organic - few famous american farmers proving that !

Organic farming is all marketing anyway in truth, its hardly even premium these days as milk / eggs are almost as cheap conventional or organic

Will Blackburn · Feb 16, 2016

Caged eggs are conventional and there are still plenty sold into manufacturing and food service industries, something like 50%.

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